1 in 3 Americans Owns a Gun

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Nearly one in three adults in the United States owns at least one
gun, according to a new study.

In the study, researchers surveyed a nationally representative
sample of 4,000 adults in the United States on
gun ownership. The researchers found that about 29 percent of
respondents said they owned at least one gun.

Most of the gun owners were white men older than 55, and the
majority of them were married, the researchers said.

The rates of gun ownership varied from state to state, with the
lowest rate in Delaware, at about 5 percent, and the highest in
Alaska, at nearly 62 percent.

The researchers found that both the rates of
gun ownership and gun deaths were higher in states with
looser gun-control policies, compared with states that have
stricter policies.

The new findings are important in showing the toll that gun
violence in the United States takes on people's lives and health,
the researchers said. In 2013, a total of 33,636 people in
the United States died, and 84,258 were injured, due to gun
violence, the researchers said.

Although people typically focus on fatalities caused by gun
violence, it is also important that the public pay attention to
the damage that gun violence inflicts on
people who are shot and survive, as these individuals often
suffer permanent injuries, said study author Bindu Kalesan.
"Nobody talks about that," said Kalesan, an assistant professor
in the department of epidemiology at Columbia University in New
York.

This is particularly true for children who are wounded
accidentally by gun violence. "They live, and they are hailed as
heroes, but at the same time they are in and out of the hospital,
with multiple surgeries," Kalesan said.

Some victims of gun violence may even initially survive a
gunshot, but die much later as a result of the injuries. Kalesan
said that while conducting the research, she met a girl who
survived a gunshot, underwent 15 surgeries over the next eight
years and recently died.

Previous research has shown that owning a gun increases a
person's risk of dying
from gun violence. About 300 million guns are currently in
use in the United States, according to estimates.

In comparison with people who did not own guns, gun owners in the
study were more than twice as likely to be associated with other
guns owners, either family or friends, or to take part in social
activities that involved using guns, the researchers found.

The survey also showed that 30 percent of the people in the study
said that they would like to buy a gun in the future, Kalesan
said.

The new study was published today (June 29) in the journal Injury
Prevention.